In Not so Many Words – Beta Readers Respond

To be continued.  Where we are going, we don't need an author standing over our shoulders.

To be continued. Where we are going, we don’t need an author standing over our shoulders.

“The end.”

I pecked at each letter with an unnatural purpose, leaving just enough pause between each tap to prolong the moment.  With all the sustain I could wrangle out of the plastic keyboard, I watched the final period come onto the screen.  Rolling for Coal had been well over two years in the making, much of the rewrite and revision work done at 30,000 feet over the course of a few hundred thousand miles.  Though I knew I still had quite a bit to learn through the Beta Read process, at that moment, part of me believed I was finished.  It was an amazing feeling.

That was then.

Truth is, through the Beta Read process, I now know I have a long way to go.  No, it’s not another two years.  But it’s more than a few edits. To be totally candid, I was crushed by this realization.  Not because I’m afraid to do the work, it’s just that I am ready to move on.

I am ready for the end so that I can be back at the beginning.

The good: my Beta Readers were kind: all but one finished the book; without exception I received helpful and constructive feedback (use a questionnaire).  My Readers seemed to agree that both the story and writing got better – much better – as it went along.

It was amazing to hear my readers talk about my characters – to say their names, discuss their personalities and desires, even question their actions, motivations, or shortcomings.  It was as if they knew them (or had an idea of how they wanted them to be), and as a first time novelist, it was gratifying to hear their names.  Prior to this process, my characters were just that: mine.  Even if critical, my beta readers put air into their lungs, gave them a pulse and I was able to watch fictitious friends come alive.  If I wasn’t totally hooked on writing fiction, I am now.

The not-so-good:  It was evident that the harder I tried, the harder it became for my readers to enjoy the story.  This was particularly true in the first half of the book, where my prose was thick; chunky metaphors and long-winded descriptions derailed the pace.

At first, this actually surprised me.  I had spent considerably more time on the first half and I actually thought my writing was more refined.  I even tried to bend the rules.   The problem was my labor was obvious.  I didn’t hide behind the words, I stood in front of them.  On each page, I was a distraction, and I didn’t disappear until the second half.

Truth is, as hard as it is to take, not many people would get past the first half as it stands: reading with someone over your shoulder is incredibly irritating, especially if it’s the author.

The take-away:  My writing improved as the story went along, and for most, the story stuck.  I can be happy with that.  I’ve learned that there is probably more than just a little room for improvement, but I’m willing to put the effort in to fix prose, trim fat, and kill a few darlings.  I can even take myself out of the story.  And once I do, there is still a big part of me that knows I might just have something to go with here.

Bottom line, instead of writing “the end,” I should have confessed “to be continued.”  Stay tuned, if you want to come along for the ride (I wish I had a Delorean).

Holy Pozole, I’ve Been Here Before

A hand dryer in Mexico City (copyright eDomnation).

A hand dryer in Mexico City (copyright eDomnation).

Wait a minute, I’ve been here before.

It’s not just the familiar smell of taquitos cooking in corn oil or the crisp smell of lime squeezed over a paper bowl of pozole. Nor is it the effortless Spanish voices behind the street stalls covered by vibrant orange and red awnings. It can’t be those things, because I know, without a doubt, that I have never been to Mexico City before.

But I feel like I have returned; part of my past was formed in the very same streets.  How did familiarity rise above the curiosity I expected with my arrival? The city is undeniably alive, and for the moment, her pulse grabbed me from the inside.

What if our souls are connected to a city or place – somewhere, on the surface, unrelated to our birthplace, home, family, or life as we currently know it?  What if our peace or happiness can only be reached if we reconnect our soul with that place?  Sounds like a journey, better yet a story, that many of us – whether we thought of it in this way – have been on before.

Coincidence? I Think Jot.

That's inconceivable.

Inconceivable! Coincidence that I have used this image more than once? I think not. (Copyright Buttercup Films, Ltd.)

A man in a faded sapphire Acura encroached our cross walk as we strolled in the morning sun towards Dolores Park.  I wouldn’t call it a near miss, but it was close enough.  We shook our heads and stepped onto the curb; observed with excitement that another pedestrian, a man just feet ahead of us, was utterly oblivious to the nearly near miss.  With a second glance, we understood why.  He wore over-the-ear headphones, covered in metallic paint that shot streaks of sun through the Castro like chards of light from a disco ball.

Given the nature of the miss that wasn’t quite close enough to be near, we forgot about incident by the time we reached the next corner.  After a few hours at the park, a cheese tray and perhaps a few beverages of the frothy variety, we decided to call it a day.

Towards the end of our walk home, we traversed the same crosswalk – this time a little bit quicker to match the pace of the fog.  Guess who walked right at us?  It was Disco Ears, the same dude who was fairly close to being nearly hit by a car a few hours earlier in the very same crosswalk.

The odds of seeing Disco Ears, again, in San Francisco that day had to be infinitesimal (dare I say, not far from nearly impossible).  But if you ask some, say James Redfield who wrote the Celestine Prophecy, just maybe it had nothing to do with odds: we were connected to Disco Ears, and there was a reason for us to share the street once again.

Truth is, I’m not so sure.  It did make me think – every story as a beginning, middle, and end.  The question is, did our story start and end with Disco Ears that day (with the park in the middle)?  Or was our second trip across the street, just the beginning?

*A phew adverbs and homonyms were slightly harmed while drafting this post.

It Goes With Saying

Hail Caeser!!!

Hail Caeser!!! Don’t be fooled by the soft and cuddly surface. He has plans for us all.

Why do we say “needless to say,” only to follow with the unneeded? [eD note: this is, perhaps, not the most judicious edit of “needless to say,”] I need to say, as of late, I’m exhausted. This might be the cause of my preemptive digression (does that make everything else that follows the real digression?). Focus, eD, this is important.

Our eight-month old, the tyrannical Monarch of House Giuliani, Lord Luca, has made it a hobby to keep us awake for most of the night. In his circles, they call it parent hunting. Anyhow, to make matters even more challenging, I have recently joined my old hockey team and started to work out again. Throw in work travel and jet-lag, recent efforts to stamp “final” on a novel, and I must confess that this (i.e., me) usurped democratic head of state of the former Giuliani Federation, is dogging it.

In fact, on this very day my legs wobble, I’m starved to the point that drool has spotted my tie, I’m desperate for a nap, and I’m distracted by virtually everything.  Other than this post, I’ve been reduced to monosyllabic responses.

Thanks to Lord Luca, I feel like a turtle thrown on its shell.  And that’s the beauty of his transgression, if you could call it that: I’ve never been so close to my son before.  Between the drool, desperation for naps, grunts, and shaky legs, I’m even acting like him.  That’s what I call effective ruling, but that goes without… ooooh look at those shiny buttons.

A Small Wedge of Pi

Diagram 1:  A vending Machine with Pi

Diagram 1: A vending Machine with Pi

In general nothing is free, but sometimes nothing will set you back a few shillings. I know, grammatically speaking, I couldn’t be more wrong. And, by the way, who still uses shillings?  Let me try to explain.

Since I started The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I’ve thought a good deal about infinite space and the law of averages.   Though my brain has struggled to accept the existence of the Infinite Improbability Drive aboard the Heart of Gold, I have accepted that given an infinite amount of time and space, just about anything can and will happen.  And when that anything does happen, it will factor into the average of the random events on either side of it.  I think.  If I’m wrong, there is a good chance my previous posts, and perhaps one of my next posts, will make up for it.

Today I came across a bottle of water wedged between a pain of glass and a rack in a highly sophisticated vending machine (see diagram 1).  It got me to thinking, there have been times in my life when I scored a free something-or-other from a vending machine, but there have also been times when I got screwed (Abba-Zabba, you used to be my only friend).   Truth is, when I pony up and press B1, I almost always say a quick prayer.  I watch the silver hook rotate like a corkscrew and say, Not this time, drop, drop, drop!

I confess, today I checked my surroundings to confirm I wasn’t being watched.  I let my shoulder fall into the vending machine.

Back to the law of averages and infinity nonsense.  At that point, just about anything could have happened.  Let’s say, an infinite amount of possibilities existed.  The water bottle could have busted free.  My shoulder could have busted through the glass.  My boss could have walked by and fired me for being such a moron.  In the bottle of water I could have found eternal youth.  In the crusty tray at the bottom of the machine, I could have found the key to the universe.

I know, mind bottling (yes, intentional).   Just think, pi is an infinite without a string of permanent repeating numbers.  If converted into binary, even this post would be represented in that infinite string.

Truth is, nothing happened.  Well that’s not entirely true.  I blushed and thought about the book I am thoroughly enjoying.  It’s a big world out there, today may have been an average day – but who knows what tomorrow may bring.

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